


Endurance, or, The Endless Un-Romantic Non-Love Story of Jared and Matt

by reading_is_in



Category: 30 Seconds to Mars
Genre: Alcholism, Angst, Bandom - Freeform, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Gay For You, Infidelity, M/M, More Hurt Than Comfort, Poor Life Choices, Touring, rock music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 05:41:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3680079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reading_is_in/pseuds/reading_is_in
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>See title.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Damage

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing these one-shots on 30stm.livejournal.com for a while and they've started to form a verse, so I thought I'd gather them together here in chronological order rather than the order I wrote them. **Disclaimer** : 100% fiction, fake, I made this all up, and so far as I know bears absolutely no resemblance to the real lives of anyone who is, was, or ever will be in 30stm. Really just me transferring a bunch of bullshit that happened in my life several years ago onto the mediated representations of other people. Enjoy.

“Shannon get up. Get. Up. This is fucking pathetic. Get up Shannon. I’m not telling you again. Get. The fuck. Up. MATT!”

When they'd first met, it had killed Jared to admit he needed help with anything, especially his brother. But they’ve been – whatever they were – for a while now, and it had become normal for him to yell for Matt’s backup when Shannon got into these situations. Needs must, Matt supposes. He’s the only one who can physically move Shannon. Still he supposes it’s an honor of sorts. A revelation of trust.

Shannon won’t get up. He disappeared last night and got back to the hotel drunk. Now he’s pulled the covers over his head to make a tight cocoon and won’t move. Jared is sitting on top of him trying to yank the covers out of his grip, ineffectually hitting and pulling at him, alternating between threats and insults and pleading and bribery. Shannon’s an alcoholic – Matt’s known that at some level since he’s known the brothers – but this particular kind of depression seemed to be new, new enough that Jared didn’t have a way to deal with it worked out. 

“Help me get him up,” he appeals to Matt without getting off of his brother. 

“We have press in two hours.” Jared’s eyes are wide and slightly red. His hair is sticking up like he’s been running his hands through it in agitation. He does not understand this particular form of dysfunction. He understands screaming, rage, hysteria, and elaborate schemes of vengeance of against his – their - enemies. Shannon just shutting down like this seems to scare him.

“Help me Matt,” he says again.

Matt goes and sits on the edge of the bed. The sheets are damp and smell like sweat and alcohol. It’s all pretty gross, but he’s lived on a bus with three other guys for the best part of a year now and apparently his standards are adjusting. Out social obligation, he tries patting Shannon’s cocooned form a little and saying, “Hey.” 

“He’s not gonna move,” says Jared, calmer and matter of fact now he has Matt with him. “We’re gonna have to dump him in the shower.”

“Shannon you have to get up okay? You need to take a shower now.” Matt only says this because it seems the appropriate thing before you physically manipulate someone. Jared nods once and jumps off the bed, runs into the ensuite and Matt hears him turn the shower on. “Shan.” Matt tries one more time. There is absolutely no response, he can only just barely see Shannon breathing, so he reaches over and locates his death grip on the blankets. 

“Come on.” Matt is stronger than Shannon – not by much, Shannon is a drummer, but the Letos are small-framed and slight despite the extra muscle development, and Matt is 6”2 and rarely misses a workout. Deprived of blankets, Shannon immediately buries his face in his hands, so that Matt has to half-carry half-drag him into the bathroom, Jared hovering and getting in the way until Matt lowered Shannon onto the closed toilet lid. Jared nods at Matt, then starts trying to wrestle Shannon out of his ratty t-shirt, which is also soaked with sweat and some stains Matt doesn’t want to know about. Still hiding his face in his hands, Shannon starts crying. Jared breathes out: any emotion is easier for him to manage than none, up to and including total breakdown, and he immediately wraps his arms around his brother as tightly as he can, rocking him and positioning Shannon to sob heartbrokenly into his shoulder. Matt is left to attend he shower, so he checks on the temperature, watching the Letos out of the corner of his eye as they cling together like one being. He still has no idea what this is about, what caused this spike from their day-to-day baseline of drama and dysfunction - so far as Matt can tell, everything was great the day before. He doesn’t resent the Letos’ club of two: it’s not like Jay ever pretended he would give Matt everything, not even for a second. Everything Jared gave him was on his own terms: Matt had pretty much spilled his own unremarkable life history the first night he was with Jay, mesmerized and stupid, but Jay could talk and talk and talk until your question disappeared and you only realized the next day he hadn’t told you anything. There’s a lot Matt doesn’t know about the brothers’ past, most of it if he’s honest, and he came to the conclusion a long time ago that he probably doesn’t want to know.

Shannon’s sobbing has subsided; Jay is talking to him to quietly for Matt to hear over the shower’s noise, foreheads pressed together has he strokes Shannon’s hair out of his face where tears have stuck it to his skin. Matt takes a step back and moves quietly for the door. Jared glances up, meets his eyes for a second of what may or may not be gratitude before dismissing him. 

*

Press is fine. Good, actually. Shannon doesn’t speak or take his shades off but that’s par for the course, Jay talks the whole time about everything and nothing, charming and brilliant as ever, gently teases Tomo who is still new and awestruck enough to take whatever comes out of Jay’s mouth as the Word of God. Matt’s gonna have to have a talk with the kid one of these days. The brothers disappear together just as soon as they get back to the hotel, so Matt sets about getting vaguely ready for bed, orders room service in vegetarian, gets a few of those fruity drinks Jay likes in case he doesn’t feel like eating. Matt doesn’t mean to fall asleep, but it’s been a long day, he’s seen the pay-per-view porno already and it was boring the first time, time fades and the next thing he knows there’s a warm weight on top of him, hands slide deliberately down his chest and he comes wide awake to the white glint of Jay’s teeth in the dark.

“Hey.”

“Hey....”

“Seems like you could use a little help here.” He shifts, deliberate.  
Obviously Matt is hard now, even if he hadn’t been already. “Want me to suck you off, or....?”

Even two years ago, if you’d told Matt he would one day enjoy – more than enjoy – getting sucked off by another guy he’d have punched you. Alright not punched. Made a derisive sound and told you to fuck off. That was before Jared, and the profound reorientation of his worldview.

“Yeah,” he says: “Wait, no. Jay, hang on a sec.” Fuck his conscience. If he actually only wanted to fuck Jared life would be so much easier. “What are you doing?”

“I....was about to be blowing you, is that a problem?” He stops theatrically,  
fingers poised at the waistband of Matt’s boxer shorts. Raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes so he looks like a cartoon character.

“Can you not do that.”

“Do what?”

“That voice. That face.” 

Jared scowls, sits back. Matt’s body feels the loss and he’s ashamed of himself. “This is my face. You never had a problem with it before.”

“I just – can you not act.” ‘It makes me feel like I’m paying for it’.

“Fine, jerk yourself off, asshole.” He gets up and heads for the bathroom.  
Shit. 

“Jay I didn’t mean-”

“Sorry for wanting to show some appreciation.” Slams a cupboard door. Matt wants to say that there are other ways of showing appreciation for a person than blowing them, and he kind of feels like a piece of shit that Jay immediately jumped to that, but maybe that’s all Jared’s fucked-up brain and not even Matt’s problem. Well it is his problem, now. Maybe not his fault.

“Hey,” Matt has to try something, so he catches Jared’s hand when Jay returns  
and starts to crawl over him, not even bothering to go around to get to his bed. The beds are so close together in this place they are practically sharing. “I’m sorry.” 

Jared side-eyes him. He wants more apology.

“I didn’t mean to – like, obviously, I have no problem with your face. Or your voice. Or your very respectable skill in blow jobs.”

“Respectable?”

“Brilliant. Your brilliant, inspired, world-leading skill in blow jobs.”  
Jared cracks a hint of a smile. 

“But I just – I don’t want you to feel like you’re paying me back for earlier. Like if you want to fuck, great, let’s fuck. But I don’t want you to feel like you’re obliged to do anything.”

Jared grins, very amused by that. He settles down on his bed on one side, propping his head up on an elbow and regards Matt.

“My dear Matthew. Are you honestly attempting to protect my innocence?”

“No,” Matt feels himself blush furiously when Jay laughs out loud, tips his head back. Obviously - obviously that ship had sailed a long time ago. Jared was older than him, and about ten thousand times more experienced. 

“You really are a romantic,” Jared mocks him.

“Don’t be a dick,” Matt turns away, embarrassed as all hell now and wanting nothing more than to go to sleep and forget it all, if he could just will away the unfortunate boner that Jay climbing all over him really hadn’t helped with.

“You have way too much guilt around sex,” Jared says, and strokes his hair from behind, once, almost a tender gesture. “Honest to God. I thought Tomo was our little Catholic schoolboy.”

Matt says nothing. Looks at the wall.

“It doesn’t always have to be some fucking revelation of the spirit okay? It can just be fun. It can just be a favour. I don’t have all this bullshit around it, so you honestly don’t need to worry about me feeling  
obligated. I swear to fucking God Matt, whatever we do here, you aren’t gonna cause me some deep fucking emotional damage via sex. I don’t work that way.”

That was in the beginning.


	2. How it stands

“But if there's one thing I’ve learned,” said Jared leaning forward, “And I mean in this business, but it’s equally true in life – one thing I’ve learned is that people will treat you how you let yourself be treated.” 

The interviewer nodded sagely.

Well, Matt had absolutely no fucking idea how to take that.

*

“So are you okay now?” Tomo came to sit next to him on the step outside the studio, all doe-eyes and concern. He produced a packet of cigarettes and lit up. 

“Yeah,” said Matt. “I’m not getting the headaches any more, guess I just needed a break and some time off.” 

“That’s good,” Tomo huddled a bit deeper into his jacket, blowing out a puff of smoke. Matt kept his eyes to the grey skyline. “What about, um, the other stuff?”

“Other stuff?”

“You know, you and Jay....are you okay now?” He looked slightly guilty for asking, as though the very question could be taken as a criticism of his leader.

Matt shrugged. 

“You’re still fighting?”

“Guess that depends on him doesn’t it,” Matt regarded the cigarette with a moue of distaste. Tomo looked offended and a little bit scandalized, like a lady parishioner hearing a curse in church.

“I wasn’t aware we were fighting,” Matt clarified. The feelings were back. He’d been apart from Jared for two weeks with minimal phone or text contact, because Jay was busy with the PR for a film that was coming out. Those two weeks had been – quiet. Quiet inside. He’d gone pre-Christmas shopping with Libby and they’d stopped outside a jewellers store, her casually discussing the rings like it was a done deal, and she’d been sweet and attentive and funny as she always was. If it wasn’t for Jared he’d never have known there was anything more to want.

“Oh,” said Tomo after a pause. “So we’re all okay.” 

Matt sighed, regretting taking his mood out on Tomo. “Yeah we are,” he said, leaning back and wrapping an arm around the younger man’s back. Tomo immediately moved up to lean against him, stubbing out the remains of his cigarette.

“Yeah we are,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Good,” said Tomo with relief. Matt smiled and pressed a brief kiss to his dark hair. God, he loved this kid. It was a very pure and refreshingly simple rush of affection. “I just, I hate it when we’re not....when everyone’s not...”

“You just want everybody to get along?” Matt teased him gently.

“Well, yeah.”

 

“Coz you're sho shweet,” Matt pinched his cheek and Tomo batted him off, grinning,

“Fuck off man.” He pushed away and lit up again.

“Tomo, that’s so bad for you.”

Tomo gave him a mock-look of surprise: “You don’t say! By God, more people should know about this Matthew! There ought to be a public health campaign! The manufacturers should put warnings on the packets!”

“Don’t you sass me.” 

Tomo smiled and rolled his eyes, then ruined the effect by coughing.

“So are we done for today or what?”

“We are. Jared has a couple more interviews and Shan is gonna go meet his prospective new drum tech....and by meet I mean....”

“Grill, harass, otherwise interrogate...”

“Exactly. I might go with him, don’t want to scare the poor guy off before he’s even started.”

“Cool.”

“You wanna come?”

“Nah, I’m just gonna....” Wait for him.

“Okay, well, you want to come out later? There’s a local metal band playing who are supposed to be really good.”

“I dunno, I’ll text you.” What he meant was ‘I doubt it’. Fourteen days without Jared’s physical presence and he missed it with the resentful gaping ache of the long-time addict.

“Cool,” said Tomo and coughed from his chest. Matt frowned:

“I really wish you’d at least cut down. Didn’t you see that infomercial in school with the smoker’s lungs and the healthy lungs?”

Tomo laughed: “Matt you are such a parent. Seriously. When you have kids you are gonna be the worst dad.”

He couldn’t answer.

“Matt? I was just kidding. You’ll be an amazing dad, obviously. The best.”

“Thanks” – strangled. 

“Anyway I’m addicted,” Tomo said casually, looking at his cigarette with a kind of commiseration. “It’s pathetic and all. But I guess there’s something about human nature, we’re supposed to have foresight, but we never wanna give up what’s bad for us until before something terrible happens.”

Matt looked at him sideways. He felt his heart rate accelerate slightly, not alarmed, just alerted.

“Anyway text me later if you want to come out.” Tomo stood up, patting Matt’s shoulder. Matt ground the butt of the cigarette into the dirt with his boot and tried to resist texting Jared, ‘how much longer’.

*

“Fuck...take it...yes...Mattie...you can take it all, can’t you? Dirty boy. You fucking love to take it. YES!”

Jared came, peremptorily, inside him. Matt stifled a cry in the pillow when he pulled out. He had come several minutes previously – sometimes Jay liked to get him off as quickly as possible, then continue to fuck him while Matt said stupid things. Matt would try to hold out, but Jared was too fucking good at this – as persistent and artistic about it as everything else in his life. 

“Good boy,” sighed Jared. He lay down, as heavily as was possible for a relatively light guy, and lightly slapped his open palm to the side of Matt’s face. “Happy?” What he meant was: satisfied? And he knew the answer. It was written all over his smug face.

“You’re fucking incredible,” said Matt. Shit, there he went again.

“I’m incredible at fucking.”

“That, too.”

Matt closed his eyes.

“So how was your trip home?”

Jesus. He would ask now.

“Matt?”

“Hm.”

“I asked you a question.”

Matt opened his eyes reluctantly. Without glasses or contacts, his vision misaligned slightly, so Jared’s face appeared as a blurred image of perfection. Jay was leaning on one elbow, propping his head up with his hand. He was frowning.

“It was good,” Matt said.

“Good?”

“Relaxing.”

Jared snorted.

Alright. If he wanted Matt to go on the offensive:

“Libby was talking about going off the pill.”

Jared looked at him blankly.

“So she could get pregnant,” Matt elaborated.

“Wh – why? She wants to get pregnant? By you?”

“No, by her other boyfriend! Of course by me! Christ.” Matt sat up and ran a hand through his hair. He was still breathing a little hard, whether from the orgasm or the aggravation.

“Well that’s stupid,” said Jared flatly.

“Why’s it so stupid?”

“Uhh, because her babydaddy will be on the road all the time....and if she thinks she’s bringing some screaming brat along on buses, she’s got another thing coming.”

“That’s my potential future kid you’re talking about.”

Jared burst out laughing. Matt blushed, hearing how absurd he’d sounded.

“It’s dumb though,” Jared said, reaching across Matt for a water bottle on the bedside   
table. “I mean this is a ridiculous time for her to even contemplate that. Does she realize that we’re right on the verge of a significant breakthrough here? That they’re discussing the possibility of our own headline tour?” 

“I told her some stuff.”

Jared drank from the bottle then leaned back against Matt, sighing happily. “Our own headline tour. Fuck. You and me and Shan and Tomo. Just the road, the stage and the fans. Jesus.” He smile a little dreamily, as euphoric at the visions of their rock and roll victory than he was when he came. More so.

“This is going to be everything we’ve ever wanted,” Jared said, the same tone he used when he’d just proved a point or concluded an argument. Then he got up. Matt’s damp skin chilled immediately at the loss of contact.

“I’m gonna shower. You should too. Don’t forget about the radio thing in the morning.”

“I won’t.”

“Hey Mattie?” a glance backwards, blue and sharp.

“What?”

“We’re gonna conquer the world you know. The four of us. This is it.”

‘This is it,’ he heard again he’d cleaned up and was trying to close his eyes, as enigmatic and absolute as the sun.


	3. Take it

If, in their messed-up little family, Jared was the mom and Matt the long-suffering patient dad, it was surely a bad sign when parents started fighting over the kids. Shannon of course would be their troubled teen, acting out and getting drunk and angry over the long dissolution of the parents’ marriage, and Tomo their sweet youngest, wanting nothing more than for everyone to kiss and make up. And how fucked was it that he was even imagining all this, given that Libby had started talking about real babies, waiting expectantly for his proposal, his and her parents assuming it was just a formality now...

...he wanted to marry her. She was a great girl and they got on great together. It would be very easy to marry her. He would want to marry her, except for –  
“Don’t slam the fucking door, asshole, Tomo’s fucking sleeping.”  
“Why is he sleeping in our room?” Matt frowned, not because he particularly minded but because Jared’s tone demanded some sort of hostility in response. His – lover? No – boyfriend – fuck no – was curled on the end of the couch, stroking their sleeping bandmate’s hair possessively and exuding resentment from every pore.   
“He doesn’t feel well, he had a headache, Shannon went out.”  
‘More like he didn’t want to sleep alone in the other hotel room, and you took the opportunity to demonstrate how at least SOMEONE loves you around here’. He’d said once that being in this band was like being married to three other people. It certainly came with the requisite levels of drama. Of course, Jared’s own voice woke Tomo up, so he made a big show of ignoring Matt to fuss over him while Matt rolled his eyes.

“You feeling better now baby?”

“Yeah,” Tomo sat up, rubbed his eyes and looked from Matt to Jared uneasily. Of course he’d heard the, shouting earlier. The whole state had probably heard it. In Jared’s account of course Matt was the fucking bad guy here, unable to decide what he wanted, stringing Libby along and when he knew Jay was all that he really wanted and unable to commit...never mind that Jared had come on to him first. Never mind that Jared had used – continued to use – his sexuality like a weapon, knowing full well the effect his face and body had on – people, so used to getting he what he wanted in bed and out of it.

And he wanted Matt.

It had been flattering, at first. Intoxicating. Once he got passed the weirdness of the gay factor (and really, Jared was prettier than most girls he’d dated), it was intensely flattering that this brilliant, beautiful creature who could have pretty much anyone in the world wanted him – Matt considered himself a very average guy. Nothing about Jared was average.

“You okay Tomes?” he asked: two could play at that game.

“Yeah I just – um – earlier I didn’t feel good. I’m gonna go – go to bed.”

“You can sleep in here if you want, Tomo,” Jared said, glaring daggers at Matt. He didn’t mean ‘sleep with me’. Jared didn’t do monogamy, but there was something about their youngest that brought out his protective and caring side. Matt didn’t get that side. Matt got sex and fire. 

“No that’s okay,” said Tomo carefully. “Someone has to let Shan in anyway. He left the keycard.”

“Okay, but come back over if you feel sick again.” Jared reached up for a hug as Tomo rose   
to depart, raising his eyebrows at Matt over his shoulders.

“He’s not a child,” Matt said as soon as Tomo was gone. “You don’t have to treat him like one.” Damn it, how did Jared always manage to make him the asshole?

“He’s twenty-two and innocent,” said Jared evenly.

“Innocent. Is that what it takes to merit a bit of civility from you?”

Jared narrowed his eyes. “Cute. In case you’ve forgotten, Matt, you are the one causing   
problems in this family.”

Matt almost laughed. “Libby and I were together when you hired me.”

At the mention of her name, something cold flashed across Jared’s face. If he were a cat, he’d have hissed. But his tone was exactly the same when he responded:

“And I was with – that blonde, that girl with that tattoo. So what? You’re the one who changed.”

“I-“ ‘didn’t change,’ he wanted to say: ‘You changed me. The situation changed’.

“Oh yeah, poor put upon Matthew,” Jared sneered, getting up and pinning effectively pinning Matt to the wall with a hand behind itself. “Victimized from all sides. If it’s so terrible why don’t you leave?”

“Because you-” trap me. Hypnotize me. Because you’re the most extraordinary person I’ve   
ever met, for better or worse, and when it’s good with us there is nothing on earth comparable. Because I have to think of you now to get hard with my sweet girlfriend. Because when I imagine my life without you in it it’s just grey, grey, grey.

“I....what?” Jared leaned in, perfect mouth close enough to kiss, bite. He pressed their bodies together, hard, hot, and fuck it! Matt was rock-hard like reflex.

“Tell me one thing,” Matt rasped. “You can be so – so kind. Why do I get this side of you? Why I do I get the screaming, the violence?”

“Because I want you to have it,” Jared whispered and bit his earlobe. “Because I want you to have all of me, and because you’re the one who can take it.”


	4. Leave a mark

It was an interesting irony that despite being the only member of the band Jared had chosen to invite into his sex life, Matt was also the only one Jay gave real cause to doubt his affection and regard. Jared and Shannon probably fought the most, in that never-ending low-key sibling way of shut up fuck you no I said it first that’s not what happened jesus christ why are you so annoying but there was no real doubt in anyone’s mind that when it came to it, Jared would do anything for his brother. Hell, he had: Matt wasn’t party to everything that had gone down during the brothers’ first desperate year in LA, but he’d gathered a clear enough picture over time, mostly from vague things Shannon said when he was drunk, trying in his clumsy way to excuse some misdemeanour or other:

“You gotta understand man, Jay, he’s always had to fight for everything he’s got in life....hell for both of us....God knows I wasn’t good for anything when we first got out here....it’s just sometimes, I think maybe he doesn’t know how to not be fighting something or someone, you know?”

Matt knew. Unfortunately all too often that someone was Matt himself. Jared was never mean to Tomo. Sometimes he treated him like a little kid, but it always came from a place of good intentions even when it got kind of dysfunctional, like firing that security guard in Mexico for upsetting their youngest, or punching out that guy in the club who pinched Tomo’s ass. Matt was fairly sure a random stranger pinching his ass wouldn’t warrant such a display of chivalry. Not that he couldn’t take care of himself. That was just – not the point.

The point was that Matt was the only one Jared ever hurt on purpose, whether with a scathing comment about his ‘little wife at home’, or his perfect white teeth drawing blood from the place where his neck met his collar bone. Then he would suck, soothing the hurt and drawing the blood to the surface, marking Matt, leaving him something to see in the mirror and think of vampirism. They were on the road, obviously, no chance of Libby seeing it, but damn if he didn’t feel it burn the next time they spoke on the phone.  
In retrospect he possibly deserved everything he was getting.

He might have called a halt to it – might have said no, fuck you, take your mind-blowing orgasms an ability to make every cell in my body light up like its never been alive before and go – were it not that the background against which the cruelties stood out was Jared being amazing. Professionally, sure: there wouldn’t be a band if not for him. And the magnetism and brilliance and all that stuff that invited comparisons to a cult leader (and damn if he didn’t enjoy that, the egotistical fucker).On a personal level too, sometimes. Last Spring, Matt kept getting these headaches. Violent ones, mostly after shows. They weren’t normal headaches, and instead of saying anything, he’d quietly managed to convince himself he was dying of a brain tumour. There was no particular reason to think it, except that his uncle had died of the same thing when Matt was eight or nine, and he always remembered everyone saying that this was how it had started. A series of violent, sickening headaches: and then he had six months to live. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jared demanded, standing over his bunk with his hands on his hips and the towel he’d just dried his hair with scrunched in one hand.  
And he’d meant to say, ‘Nothing’, but instead he said, “I think I’m sick,” and Jared marshalled him to a doctor, sat with him in the office while he spilled his worst fears. the doctor said something about scans and went off to get forms or papers, and Jared took Matt’s face in hands, looked him in the eyes and said,

“We’ll deal with it. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it.”

with the kind of resolution you can’t argue with.

Of course he hadn’t been dying of cancer. That was a paranoid fantasy. When Jared found out Matt had given himself a concussion by headbanging onstage, he laughed his ass off.

“Oh man! That is so...that’s so you, Mattie. That’s just perfect.”

It was kind of perfect, admittedly. Matt was clearly some kind of masochist.

They got two weeks completely in the middle of touring. The show that night had been incredible. Jared was incandescent in a way that shouldn’t have been possible for a man who’d ben onstage almost every night for close to a year, feeding off the crowd and giving it back to them times a million. ‘I have what none of them have’, Matt thought, but then, the reverse was also true. They had the god, infinitely bountiful. He had what Jared felt like giving him. After the show he hugged Shan and Tomo goodbye and Jared blew him a cheeky kiss without interrupting the phone call he was taking. Matt went back to the hotel room to pack.

So this should have been exciting. Libby had left him a voicemail message asking what time his flight got in and did he want her to make dinner reservations for tomorrow night or should they just have an evening in (here she giggled)...that she loved him and couldn’t wait to see him tomorrow. The resentment that bubbled up when he heard it made him feel like the lowest form of scum. If he didn’t call she’d just phone again and it would be entirely reasonable.

“Well that was a waste of my fucking time,” the door slammed behind him. He jumped about a foot and dropped his phone like he’d been doing something guilty.

“What was?”

“Oh you know that movie I was thinking about doing, the prison thing, well the funder pulled out. They’re basically shelving it indefinitely and fucking me around, trying to get me to commit to just drop everything and come film at a time it suits them...I’m like not gonna happen buddy, you put down a date and we’ll negotiate. Jesus that was a good show, wasn’t it?” He flung himself backwards on Matt’s bed, spreading his arms. His eyes were huge and blue, still high with post-performance adrenalin.

“It really was,” Matt said.

“Hey Mattie come here,” Jared held out a hand. Matt went over and allowed Jared to grasp his wrist. He was caught off guard when Jay pulled him down suddenly, catching his balance with one leg on either side of him, pressed against the bed. 

“Jay I-”

“You looked hot as hell out there tonight.”

Matt bit his lip. Jared directed Matt’s hand to his own cock, semi-hard in his black jeans: “That’s for you.”

Christ. What made it worse was with the long hair he literally looked like an angel.

“Want to fuck me? I could really use it.”

“Jay I’m going home to see Libby tomorrow. I’m gonna see her parents. I can’t...”

 

Jared glared, pissed now: “Kind of late to start playing the morality card.”

“It’s just – this isn’t fair – to any of us...”

“So dump her.”

Pause.

“It’s not that simple.”

Aggravated, Jared pushed him off. “Why isn’t it?”

“It’s just – we’ve been together so long...people expect...she expects-”

“What, are you gonna do, marry her?” Sarcastically, nastily.

Matt was silent.

“Hey! You’re not gonna marry her, dumbass!” Jared got up, grabbed Matt’s chin and turned his face to him. “How is that gonna make anything any better?”

“I don’t know,” said Matt quietly.

“Damn fucking right.” Jared sighed, leaned in and started licking Matt’s neck carefully.

“Don’t – don’t leave a mark-”

“I won’t...just want you to fuck me okay? I really need to get fucked. If you don’t fuck me I’m not gonna be able to sleep, so I’m gonna have to go out and find...hmmm...hello...something tells me this big guy is up for the job....yeah....look at that...”

Fifteen minutes later, Jared was asleep, turned away from Matt but with the corner of his triumphant smile still visible in the curve of his cheek. Matt lay awake and stared at the ceiling, listening to his phone buzz quietly.


	5. You and me and everyone we know, part 1

“You know why you’re the best,” Jared said to him, when Matt was half asleep against his chest and shoulder and Jay was still wide awake as usual. This was during the time Matt was trying to get him to say 'I love you'. He and Libby were on a break, and maybe back then he hadn’t got the measure of the situation, if that’s an excuse. Still holding out for what Jared couldn’t or wouldn’t give him.

“Hm?” he asked, roused a bit.

“Because you balance me. You’re like the opposite of me, everything I’m not.”

Was that a compliment, or...?

“We’re the ones who are gonna hold this together.”

Oh, it was.

“Before I met you,” Jared was thoughtful, stroking Matt’s hair but not looking at him:  
“When it was just the three of us, I had to manage both Shan and Solon, and they make each other worse.”

Pause.

“There were nights when I wondered if I could do it, before I had you to balance me.”

And that was as near a confession of love as Matt was likely to hear.

Anyway that was all before Solon quit, amid a three day booze-binge and knock-down drag-out fight with Jared, leaving Jay stunned and seething that he’d actually gone through with it, before reverting to

“I never fucking liked that fucker anyway. Like he’s half the goddam musician he thinks he is. Acting like he’s fucking Jimi Hendrix, like he’s doing us such a goddam favour by deigning to play with us, fuck him, I can find somebody better in a week, he can go to hell.”

That wasn’t true. Solon was a fucking awesome guitarist - witness the whole first album - but he was also a cynical, unreliable jerk with a drinking problem. Tomo was his polar opposite. Now instead of helping to corral the edgy, evasive Solon Matt was helping to keep an eye on the kid Jared doted on, whether because Tomo was the youngest by several years or because he intermittently came out with something so goddam endearingly naïve and optimistic you just desperately didn’t want anything to wreck that. Matt had a sneaking suspicion that part of the reason Jared had hired Tomo was the young man’s hero worship of him. Solon leaving was one of the few things – the only thing? – Matt had seen make a significant negative impact on Jared’s ego. 

He got over it though.

Matt and Libby were back on again, and Matt told Jared they had to stop because he wasn’t that kind of person. 

“O-kay,” said Jared rolling his eyes. “Let me know next time you break up with her.”

“You make it sound like we break up every month.”

“Yeah well – not officially maybe, but even when you’re with her, be honest, you’re not  
really with her anymore are you Mattie?”

“Fuck you,” said Matt, which Jay thought was hilarious. So in any case Jared was back to  
being insane and brilliant and intensely productive, apparently writing their next album even as they zig-zagged back and forth across the country opening for everything from folk groups to some kind of Japanese fusion death-metal techno initiative who were actually pretty good in limited doses. Shannon was the happiest Matt had ever seen him and would probably be content to do with forever were it not for Jared’s dreams of world domination.  
Matt found him outside a venue at 2am, smoking.

“What the fuck? You don’t smoke!”

Jared shrugged. “Appetite suppressant.”

“Uh, cos you really need that!”

“I have to lose twenty pounds in two months.”

Matt stared at him like he’d gone crazy, all kinds of insane ideas jumbling for prominence. Eventually he just settled on, 

“From where?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“If you lost twenty pounds you would look seriously sick.”

“That’s the look I’m going for.”

Matt stared some more so Jared finally put him out of his misery:

“It’s for an audition. I’m not cracking up on you.”

“I still think it’s a bad idea,” Matt said. He’d started to become alarmed at the degree of fear he felt every time Jay did something dangerous – this wasn’t the sharp jolt of cold terror he associated with scaffolding stunts, but a kind of dread. ‘You have to be careful’, he wanted to say, ‘because even though there are times when I feel like I could kill you myself, you’re in me now, mixed up and necessary, and if anything ever happened to you I don’t know if I’d survive the ripping out of that vital substance’.

“Yeah well. Good job you’re not an actor then,” Jay blew smoke in his face on purpose. Matt glared at him. “I want the part. Also, don’t quote me on this, but I feel like there could actually be some money in this one.”

“Yeah alright.”

“Don’t do that face.”

“I’m not doing any face.”

“Yeah you are, you’re doing it right now.”

Jared poked him in the side to make him lose his composure then started tickling him.

“Don’t touch me,” Matt snapped.

“Alright, Jesus, remind me never to talk to you when you’re on your period.”

“Just be careful,” Matt sighed.

“I know what I’m doing.”

Matt guessed he did. At first, anyway. Sure he was a little skinnier, a little edgier, a little more stressed than usual but it was all a change in degree not in kind and the performances never suffered. After a show, he came to Matt’s room and said,

“Let’s fuck,” and Matt said

“No. I’m with Libby.”

And Jared said,

“Please.”

Matt said, “No,” again, and Jared said,

“Give me a kiss,” and closed his eyes, looking suddenly very young, so Matt cupped his sharp cheek and jaw bones and kissed him once, on the mouth, and told him the show was brilliant. He caught the brothers having an argument once, or the tail end of it at least, which seemed to end with Jared yelling something like

“Lay off Shannon, you’re not my dad okay!”

and then Shannon going out and getting catastrophically wasted. So Matt wasn’t too sanguine leaving them for a week, but he and Libby’d had a week booked in Mexico for three months now and goddamit he was going to enjoy this holiday like a normal person.

“Call me,” he said to Tomo quietly when we was finishing packing to leave: “Call me if anything...if you guys need me for anything.”

Tomo nodded somberly. He’d been increasingly quiet the past couple of weeks, clearly feeling the tension and unsure if it was his place to say anything.

“Actually just call me tomorrow night,” Matt said. “You know, to check in.”

“To check in,” Tomo echoed.

“Alright,” said Matt, resisting the urge to say: “Be good.”

Jay said: “Bye, see you in a week” like he didn’t give a shit but when Tomo called the next night Matt could tell something was wrong.

“What, Tomo?” he persisted, turning away so that Libby couldn’t see his face, watching the moon fall on the waves beyond the window of their beach house.

“Nothing...”

“Don’t lie, you’re terrible at it.” He gave up and stepped out onto the wooden porch. The night air was warm and fragrant.

“It’s just...Jay was kind of upset earlier. Well more than kind of.” Pause. “I think he cried.” – mystified, like Tomo hadn’t known that was possible.

‘Shit’, Matt closed his eyes. He ought to have known better than to leave him like that. Increasingly brittle and fragile. He spent the next six days with one eye on the phone, half-hoping for something to happen already and put him out of his misery. Libby was first worried, then annoyed, then by the fourth day closed-off in her body-language, folded arms and downturned mouth at odds with her bright floral bikinis. She asked him how they were supposed to be in an adult relationship when he refused to talk to her.

“It’s just, it’s not that, it’s just work stuff. Talking about it wouldn’t help, I’d just bore you.”

“So then give me your phone. This is supposed to be a holiday from work and apparently you  
can’t switch off with that thing anywhere near you.”

“I can’t.” His heart pounded in his throat. There were texts on there that if taken the wrong way....(and what was the wrong way, exactly?) “There – there might be a problem. It’s just a difficult time right now – legal stuff to do with the rights distribution – it’s really boring to explain.”

She looked at him closely. “If there was a problem....what do they expect you to do about it from Mexico?”

He shrugged.

“Don’t treat me like I’m stupid Matt,” she said quietly. “I won’t pry if you don’t want me to. Just don’t treat me like I’m stupid, that’s all I’m asking.”

“I would never, I would never do that,” he said hurriedly, and kissed her.

 

*

When he got home, Shannon was passed out in his bunk, Tomo was in the back of the bus watching a movie with headphones on, and Jay was sitting on the couch scribbling furiously in his notepad and looking like hell. There were shadows under his eyes, he was paler than normal and his expression suggested he was composing a series of elaborate and detailed death threats. Matt actually did a double take.  
“  
Well, nice to see all you guys too,” he called, dumping his bag on his bed. “Mexico was great, thanks for asking. Mostly hung out on the beach, did a little sight-seeing...yeah I missed you too.”

“I’m working,” Jared snapped. “Either be quiet or go somewhere else.”

Matt yanked his privacy curtain closed and texted Libby.

*

“I’m sorry,” Jared whispered. He was translucent, almost, a thing of hard-edged beauty in the moonlight. Matt couldn’t sleep. Miles rolled on and on beyond the windows, the living area in darkness save for the moon and the rhythmic streaks of the interstate lighting falling over their faces. “It was too hard without you, it was just....”

“I know,” Matt whispered.

“I need you.”

Matt closed his eyes and opened them again only slowly.

“I feel like I’m going to implode right. Kill someone. Kill myself.”

“You’re never gonna do that,” he whispered.

Jared shrugged.

“Don’t – don’t try to manipulate me,” Matt said sharply.

“I’m not! That’s how I feel Mattie otherwise I wouldn't say it!”

“Okay – okay just – shh,” Matt stroked his face, the skin dry and soft. Jared bit his lip. There were tears in his eyes.

“I can’t stand the thought of losing you,” Jared whispered.

“You’re not! You won’t!”

“You have to show me. Don’t tell me, show me.”

That was how it started again, and that was how Libby found out, because Jared texted:

I need you right now. I need you to fuck me just like you did last night and make me feel it 

on the morning after that goddam audition that left him so fucking brittle, and Libby was leaned over in one rapid-quick-fire decision and read it before his finger could find delete, because after all, she really wasn’t stupid.


	6. You and me and everyone we know, part 2

“Get out,” she said.

“Libby-“

“Get out.”

“Are you – are we...?”

“I’m not saying anything. Just – please. I can’t look at you right now. Just get out.”

He picked up his jacket, slowly.

“I-”

“What?” she said, pale and mask-like: “What do you have to say to me, Matt?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

She laughed: a short, torn thing: “Oh that’s – wow. That’s funny. You didn’t want to hurt me. Funny how we never seem to get what we want in life, isn’t it Matthew?”

That was true enough.

If Jay had laughed at him, or, for that matter, persisted in demanding Matt fuck him immediately, Matt would have turned around and walked right back out again. Who knows where. Possibly under a bus. There was enough traffic in LA rush hour for it. But he didn’t. He took one look at Matt’s face and put his arms around him, standing on tip-toes to hug him tight.

“Libby knows,” Matt said. He didn’t say: this is your fault, why the fuck would you text me that, you knew I was at her house.

“I guessed.” Jay let him go, pushed him back to hold him at arms length.

“Not gonna say ‘good, fuck her’?” It came out as a bit of a squeak. Matt was possibly slightly hysterical. He realized he had zero memory of getting to Jared’s place. Had he driven? He must have, the car keys were still in his hand. Where the hell had he parked the car?

Jared shook his head and led him by the hand into the living room. He wasn’t going to say that, but he wasn’t going to say he was sorry either. He made Matt sit down and poured him a drink. Even while he was doing that Matt was checking his phone.

“What do you wanna do?” Jared said and crouched down in front of him.

“I don’t know,” said Matt.

“Wanna get drunk?”

Matt blinked.

“You should get drunk.”

“Isn’t that your brother’s solution?”

“Sometimes my brother is right.”

They didn’t have sex for the next four days, an extraordinarily long time when they were together with no immediate pressing duties. Then they did, several times, and by the end Matt was possibly past the point of rough and into punishment, but Jay just kissed him afterwards and said, “Just how I like it babe.” Then Jared quietly wrote two songs and let Matt sit around his house in paralysis, summoned Shannon and Tomo over to cheer him up, even offered to get high with him (“special dispensation, one time offer, okay?”). Pot did little to nothing. 

On the fifth day Libby texted him:

Meet me at Muse on 8th. 2pm.

I’ll be there he texted back, added an xo, deleted it, and sent the message.

When he turned up she was waiting, drinking iced lemonade from a pink glass. She was   
dressed in blue jeans and a crisp shirt, sunglasses failing to hide her pale skin or the stress lines around her mouth.

“I’m pregnant,” she greeted him. 

Matt guessed he shouldn’t have wished so hard for something to take the decision away from him.

“It’s yours, in case you were wondering.” 

He supposed he deserved that.

“Mattie,” she sighed, spreading her hands in defeat.

“Libby I’m so sorry,” he began. “I have no excuse. I love you, and I hate myself for doing this. I’m an idiot.”

“Yes. You are.”

She said she loved him and she wanted him to be a father to their child. She said he’d hurt her horribly, humiliated her, made her feel like a stupid little girl and he deserved to feel like shit, and she didn’t particularly want to hear how bad he felt. She said she thought she could forgive him eventually.

“But,” she said absolutely seriously: “You have to make a choice.”

“Of course,” he said.

“No,” she shook her head: “You’re not listening. You have to choose between us and him. I don’t want to think about him. I never want to hear his name again.”

Pause.

“Matt, I can’t.” Her voice broke a bit.

“Okay,” he said.

“You have to quit the band."

He was silent, and she modified her demand:

“Don’t do this tour. Just – just don’t.”

“I can take a break,” he said.

“I never want to hear his name again,” she repeated.

Jared went insane.

In all fairness, he was due for it: hadn’t had a grade-5 meltdown for months, not with screaming and throwing things and shit, so it was kind of inevitable Matt’s little announcement had triggered it. A kind of inverse of Libby’s dismissal – he left with Jared yelling

“Don’t you dare turn your back on me, Wachter, don’t you dare walk out that fucking door I swear to God you son of a bitch –“

And then calling his phone immediately, texting him

Fuck you

How dare you do this to me

You would be nothing without this band

And on and on all fucking evening. In the morning:

You cannot walk out on your family 

 

You’ll be back. I give you a fucking week fucker. Expect punishment.

And then silence.

Libby put his hand on her stomach and said, “I know it’s impossible, but I can’t help thinking I can feel him in there.” She’d decided she was having a boy. Matt couldn’t listen to music. He couldn’t play – not anything. There was a distinct and growing possibility he would have to find another career.

Two weeks passed. Jay had stopped texting and calling him. Libby was smiling at him again, not her full smile, but a hopeful and tremulous and genuine thing: the seed of faith they would make it together, the potential three of them. He would have to talk to Jay at some point soon because his car was still in his garage and they couldn’t keep sharing Libby’s indefinitely. Then he got a call from Shannon.

“Hello?” he said with trepidation, assuming he was going to be yelled at.

“Hey,” Shannon sounded subdued. “Thought you’d wanna know – Tomo’s in the hospital.”

“What?” He gasped, feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach. “What happ-?”

“He got hit by car crossing the street. He’s gonna be okay – “ over Matt going 

“Oh my God, holy shit, oh my God I can’t believe it –“

“But yeah he’s pretty banged up. St. Catherine’s on 3rd if you wanna go.”

“Give me twenty minutes. Thirty,” glancing at the rain. He was already grabbing his coat and wallet and heading for the door, and Libby was standing there watching him a little open-mouthed, and he explained: “Tomogothitbyacar,” and she said,

“Oh!” – Surprised, and didn’t say anything else as he rushed out the door and the next thing he knew he was pulling into the parking lot at the hospital. Christ.

Shannon met him in the waiting room. He looked stressed, but not devastated, so Matt just   
went:

“How bad?”

And Shannon said,

“Bad enough. Kid’s got some broken ribs a concussion, cuts and bruises, you know.”

“Okay,” Matt blew his breath out. It could be worse. It could be way worse. “I wanna see him. Is he awake, can he have visitors?”

“Yeah he’s awake, kind of - in and out. Pretty doped up. Jay’s in there right now though.”

Matt froze. He didn’t know what to do, but he couldn’t stay away, the sick panic and feeling of dread since he’d first heard the awful words wouldn’t go away until he could see Tomo with his own eyes and reassure himself Tomo was alive. Breathing.

“Jay’s not gonna tell you to fuck off and die,” said Shannon, like it was that simple, drawing a glare from a passing nurse at his language.

“Okay,” said Matt, “Okay,” so Shannon showed him the room.

Kind-of-awake seemed to be an exaggeration to Matt. Tomo’s eyes were closed and he was hooked up to machine a monitoring his steady pulse, a couple of IVs in his left arm and his black hair feathered across his face. A dark bruise marred one cheek and eye socket. The side of his face was scraped from concrete and his bottom lip was split but had already scabbed over. He breathed steadily, very much alive, and ascertaining that Matt’s eyes went automatically to Jared. Jay was cross-legged in the chair beside the bed, pale and red-eyed, fingertips of one hand stroking Tomo’s inner arm near the elbow, emanating an unfocused rage which he immediately honed on Matt in the instant he saw him. 

“Matthew,” said Jared.

Matt made an abortive moment.

“Nice of you to stop by.”

“What do you mean?” Matt snapped.

“How can you.....” Jared made a visible effort to swallow his rage, keep his voice low: “I had to fucking deal with this by my fucking self. How the hell do you think that made me feel?”

Oh, okay. Matt at least understood the precise nature of his transgression now. Their kid had gotten hurt and Matt hadn’t been there. Jay was incandescent with the rage of the abandoned single parent, both martyr and victim to this family Matt was breaking.

“This is your fault,” Jared hissed. “He’s been fucking distraught since you left us. He was distracted-“

“Maybe because you were being insane!” Matt hissed back. “Maybe if you behaved like a sane person over this-“

“Jay?” Tomo muttered.

“Yes baby,” like a switch flicking: absolutely calm. Jared rubbed Tomo’s arm a bit more briskly and turned to him. “Right here, what do you need?”

“Ismattherre?” struggling to open his eyes. Matt saw the split-second of indecision over Jared’s face, but he wasn’t that cruel, nowhere near it.

“Yeah, you wanna talk to him?”

“Hm.”

Jared stood up very warily and took a step back. He was still staring at Matt in his creepiest way. Matt crouched down on the other side of the bed and made himself smile.

“Hi,” he said quietly. “Feel okay? You scared us pretty good there, huh?”

Tomo blinked at him, smiled, and fell asleep again. At that moment the door opened a nurse pushing a cart full of instruments strode over, smiling efficiently and impersonally:

“I’m just going to check a few things, only take five minutes,” she said in an English accent, thank Christ not recognising Jay but producing a blood pressure cuff and reaching for the privacy curtain. Her movements made it quite clear she expected visitors to leave, so Jared and Matt ducked out into the corridor and Jared did possibly the only thing Matt wasn’t expecting, and burst into tears.

“Oh fuck, calm down,” said Matt.

“Don’t fucking tell me to calm down you motherfucker!” Jared hit him ineffectually, Matt reflexively grabbed his wrists and pulled him towards a quieter corner of the waiting area before he got all of them kicked out. Jared was crying. Matt put his arms around him and first Jay spat and swore at him a bit more but then he gave up and cried on him, then he pushed him away and said:

“You have no fucking idea what that was like.”

“I can imagine,” Matt said softly.

“No you can’t. I needed you. We needed you. They wouldn’t even tell me anything on the phone and he could have been dying.”

“I’m here,” Matt said. “I got here as fast as was physically possible.” Jared gave him a derisive tear-stained look and said,

“Well you shouldn’t have had to get here at all should you.”

Pause.

“Oh by the way your car’s got about six traffic violations and probably a couple of parking tickets by now,” Jared added flatly.

Matt looked at him.

“It was closest to the garage door,” Jared explained.

“Fine, I guess,” Matt ran a hand through his short hair and closed his eyes. All the adrenalin was leaving him in a rush now and he kind of felt like crying too.

“I can’t do this without you Matt.”

Pause.

“That’s what I realized today. I mean yeah we were lucky as shit this time but next time there’s some kind of crisis....I can’t do it on my own. You did that to me. Cos before I met you I could do anything on my own, and then you got all inside of me and took that away.” He shrugged. “You made me depend on you like I never depended on anyone else to hold it together. So think about that. Next time you think about your responsibilities.” He paused to wipe his face on his sleeve, looking for one instant unbearably young. “That nurse should be done by now, she said five minutes.” He got up and walked back down the corridor, leaving Matt with the view of the set of his thin shoulders.


End file.
